Flabbergast
by BML Hillen-Keene
Summary: Nathan reveals something he probably shouldn't have. A Nathan, Ezra story. No slash.
1. Chapter 1

_Don't own… still_

_I've been going through my story folders and I have come across a few fanfic ideas, so I figured I might as well share them with you. Please enjoy._

Ezra had been hoping to avoid this little confrontation with his team-mates, and by teammates he meant Chris, Buck, Josiah and JD, Vin was sitting in the background, hat tipped over his eyes, though he could practically feel the anger radiating off him. The only one not present was Nathan. Of course the confrontation wasn't so much a confrontation as it was Chris yelling at him over the admittedly stupid stunt he had pulled earlier that day.

He drowned most of it out, as he normally did Chris's angry rants. It wasn't even as if he had deliberately set out to pout himself or the others in danger, he had just seen an opportunity and went for it, he hadn't even gotten injured, nor had anyone else, well, not really injured, a few bruises on his back where he had fallen, a small scrape along his left arm, the others were even less injured as far as he knew. So he tuned out Chris' rant, because he knew he would need all his energy later to deal with--

"Ezra Peter Standish!"

Oh crap, he was in trouble now, especially if he had decided to berate him publically for once. He grimaced and turned from Chris to look at Nathan, who now stood in the door way to the saloon. The patrons had cleared out long time ago, and wouldn't back until after the shouting died down, it didn't happen often, which was probably the only reason Inez had yet to throw them out.

"Yes Nathan?" he asked, trying to sound as unruffled as he could, though inside he was cringing.

"Of all the goddamned irresponsible things to do!"

"Nate, ole Chris is taking care of this, jest sit back an' wait yer turn." Buck said, his face almost jesting but serious, he was just as unhappy as the others.

"Really, gentlemen, surely you're blowing this completely out of proportion, after all, the enemy was defeated and no one was injured." Ezra tried to diffuse the situation.

"No Buck, I'm going to goddamn deal with him this time, Chris, back off now, he's not listening to you anyway!" Nathan snapped, and Ezra dared hope he had been momentarily forgotten, but Nathan's dark eyes focused on him angrily and he knew he luck had failed him. "And you… dammit Ezra, you know better than to be putting your life on the line like that, what am I suppose to tell Maude next time she rolls through? 'Sorry ma, but he pulled another of his crazy fool stunts and got himself kilt this time'?" Nathan looked at him long and d hard. "Well?" he demanded when Ezra didn't speak.

"Well, maybe if you don't phrase it quite in that manner... And really Nathan, she'll hardly--"

"One more word and I swear I'm gonna break my promise to ma daddy and smack you one."

"oh, and that's a perfectly civilised way to deal with this situation, what exactly is smacking me going to achieve other than give me an extra bruise on my head?" he asked indignantly.

"Don't pull this crap with me Ezra; I'm not in the mood. What on earth were you th8inking?" Nathan asked it in that tone that held just the right hint of hurt, irritation and pure exasperated confusion, and worry, and Ezra knew he had to answer honestly, no matter how much he had hoped to avoid it.

Ezra warred with himself, aware that they were still in front of the others, and feeling a little self conscious. He really wished Nathan had waited until they were in private. "." he muttered.

"Ezra!" Nathan shut his eyes in annoyance now.

"There was a man with a gun pointed at your head! Ok? Happy?" Ezra said, trying to sound clipped, but knowing he had somehow slipped into the tone he typically ended up using when Nathan dragged these things out of him, sort of lost and hating himself for it.

"Oh Ezra." Nathan sighed; he was silent and studied him for a long moment before sighing again. "Come on; let's get that scratch cleaned out before I end up having to amputate your arm."

Ezra protested, as he would normally, but allowed Nathan to usher him out of the saloon, leaving the rest of the seven behind with some very confused expressions. But Ezra refused to thin k on that at the moment, and he definitely refused to think of all the explaining that needed to be done. When they were alone he looked at Nathan and blew out a sigh.

"You're explaining this one big brother."

_I think I was on a bit of a Ezra, Nathan kick when I wrote this… but really, I think they would make great brothers. I know technically Ezra is older than Nathan, but I much prefer Nathan being the elder one. Please review of you enjoyed._


	2. Chapter 2

_direct continuation from last chapter._

Nathan didn't answer Ezra, after all, it was obvious it was going to be him explaining the situation to the others, they likely wouldn't believe Ezra, and hell Ezra would probably put embellishments in that didn't need telling, stuff about their Ma that didn't need telling. Oh, Ezra was a crafty sort, and he always had been, but the problem with him was that he was surprisingly honest in his craftiness. It would be guaranteed that he wouldn't tell a single word of a lie to the others and yet the others would still be left just as clueless as before.

He tuned out the normal comments Ezra made when they were alone and he was stuck patching his fool brother up again, comments against his skills, his teachers, the people who made bandages, or rubbing alchol. There was a whole list of things Ezra complained about, just to get a rise out of him. Instead his thoughts drifted back, back further than Ezra could remember and to the stories his father told him.

~*~

Obediah had been a slave on the Standish plantation for many years, he'd worked in the fields, like the other slaves, having no aspirations to work in the house. There were stories of how the men who worked in the house were forced to stand by and do nothing while the masters of the house took the slave girls to their beds. Obediah knew he would never be able to stand by like that, he would end up killing the white bastards who tried it.

He had always known about the young mistress of the house Maude, the masters only daughter, the only woman in the house after her mama's death. She was a kind, but wilful child, and could often be found going head to head with the foreman of the plantation, arguing over the punishments he set for the slaves, bringing those same slaves food and water.

Master Standish wasn't the worst master a slave could ever have, he never allowed them to go hungry, or be too badly whipped and punished, it was simply his taste for the young slave girls that earned him a cruel reputation. His foreman on the other hand was such a cruel man, but he lost more oft than he won because of Mistress Maude.

Obediah wasn't sure when he realised he was in love with the young mistress, nor could he tell when she had begun to love him. All he knew was that he would often find her seated near where he was working, reading or drawing, though she spent more time watching him that completing her other tasks. He began to say good-day to her when he did see her, and she responded in kind. All to soon it seemed they were engaged in some kind of secret courtship ritual, which eventually lead one day to a meeting of their bodies. Now Obediah was a religious man, and he knew that making consummating love was best done after the wedding, but he also knew that there was no way he and Maude could ever have a wedding.

They continued in this fevered, loving fashion for four months before Maude suddenly didn't show up anymore. Obediah worried that they'd been found out, but no one came to hang him, so he could do nothing by wait, and wondered. Many months later he was suddenly dragged from the fields and to the main house. Once there he saw Maude, his beautiful Maude, on her knee's, clutching a baby to her, begging her father to let her keep it. Her father ripped the child from her arms and threw it towards Odediah, who, when he caught it, realised that it was his. It was difficult to tell just who the mother was, impossible to tell she was white, but Obediah could see her clearly in the baby's nose.

He was sold that day to Master Jackson, the baby along with him.

~*~

Nathan always remembered the sadness in his father voice when he told him that story. At times Nathan, in his youth, had hated that he had been born looking so much more like his father, and hated his mother and her white family for turning him away and into a slave. But his father had always gently reminded him that if she'd had the choice, Maude would never have let him go.

~*~

It was four years later that they were reunited, suddenly sold from Master Jackson's plantation. They had been bought by Maude, who was heavily pregnant at the time under the pretense of a manservant to fetch and carry for her as she would be travelling, and a child to be company and a servant for her unborn child. It was the perfect pretense, and one that he and his father had lived under for many years.

Ezra was born two months later, the son of one of her fathers friends. She had been married off soon after they had been sold, she told them, and the man she had been sent to was not a gentleman by any means. She had been trying since her marriage to escape from the man, and only managed to when she fell pregnant, and the man had let his guard down, believing her incapable of leaving him in her present condition. She had taken her chance and run, stopping only long enough to raise the money she needed to buy the two of them.

Ezra's insecurity about Maude's feelings towards him were not entirely misplaced, and they were the only things Nathan would agree (if only silently) with Ezra about in regards to her. Maude had not reacted well to the new baby, in fact she tended to ignore him in favour of Nathan, the child of her love. Nathan had learned much later that Ezra was the product of rape, and so he invoked certain feelings in Maude against his birth father. However Obediah had taken to Ezra and cared for him until Maude could treat him with the same care she did Nathan. Eventually, by the time Ezra turned four, she could look at him without the anger and fear she felt towards the man who had raped her, but it was always obvious who was her favorite son, to them at least.

~*~

"Nathan." the tone in Ezra's voice let him know that he ad been trying to get his attention for a few minutes at least.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I should hope you don't go woolgathering when you are performing surgeries." he said with a smile. "What were you think about?"

Nathan shook his head and stood, resting a hand on Ezra's shoulder. "Ma, and how unfair the world is."

Ezra shrugged. "The world is always unfair." there was an edge to it and Nathan frowned, he knew Ezra still had unresolved issues with Maude, he always would.

"You know she loves you? Right? And you know Pa loved you to?" Nathan said, squeezing his shoulder and looking Ezra square in the eye.

Ezra shrugged again.

Nathan sighed and sat down on the cot beside his brother. "You've got to stop taking fool risks like that Ezra." he said. It needed to be talked about at some point, and it might as well be now. Maybe he could make it sink in this time. Ezra was stubbornly silent. "Ma would skin me alive if she thought I was letting you get yourself banged up like this regular."

"Only because I'm a reflection on her. And besides, she would do far worse to me if she found that I'd allowed her favorite child to be killed when I could have prevented it." Ezra pointed out, a little bitterly.

Nathan sighed again, but changed track, no convincing was going to change Ezra's mind on that, unless it was Maude herself that told him, but Nathan knew his mother's limitations, she would never tell Ezra how much he meant to her, not in any way that would mean something to him, in a way that he would understand and accept. Nathan often thought it maybe hurt her too much, hurt to care about something that was the reason she had been ripped from the man she loved and the child she had had with him.

"How about you give me a break then Ezra. I don't wanna see my little brother dead because of me, or dead full stop. Four Corners wouldn't be near as much fun if you weren't around. ok?"

The silence streached for a long while before Ezra nodded.

"Fine, I'll do my best." he promised, then he grimaced. "We still need to tell the others..." he looked at Nathan seriously. "Could we diffuse the situation you think?"

Nathan smiled. "I don't think they'll find anything wrong with Ma and Pa being together Ezra, it should be ok to tell them the truth"

Ezra nodded. "Allright then, but you will be informing our comrades of this situation."

Nathan ruffled his hair, a habit he had developed as a child to break Ezra out of his 'Maude sulks', Ezra made a noise halfway between a protest and a squawk and batted his hand away.

__

This was a crappy followup, even for me. But I wanted to try and explain just how I saw them being real brothers, and a little of the history of Maude and Obediah (at least I really hope that's his name!). Please forgive the spellings, I'm having a bad day with them. Please review of you enjoyed


	3. Chapter 3

~*~

When they returned to the saloon half an hour later it was getting back to full swing, but there was a heavy silence surrounding one table. Ezra actually, upon stepping through the swinging doors was ready to turn around, citing patrol as his cause. Nathan snorted at his excuse.

"It would be more believeable if you actually took going on patrol seriously. Which everyone here knows ya don't." he commented, and Ezra inwardly cursed, squared his shoulders and continued on inside.

"Gentlemen." he greeted when he reached the table smiling as disarmingly as he could.

"Ez." Vin nodded.

"Brother Ezra, Nathan." Josiah said, looking past Ezra to Nathan, his gaze questioning.

Nathan gave Ezra a slight push. "Sit." he said quietly, knowing Ezra was becoming nervous and would, any moment, begin spouting his mouth off and land himself in some sort of trouble because of it. "Seems like we might have some sort of explaining to do." he addressed the others.

Chris looked between them. "Not if you don't want to." he said. "There ain't nothing we need to know."

"More a case of what we want to know." Buck added.

"We are a little curious." Josiah spoke up.

JD was quiet, but he was virtually vibrating in his seat wanting to know what was going on between them. Vin was a silent watcher.

"Well, see... it's like this..." Nathan began, only to pause as he realised there was no way to put this that would not sound indiscreet; after all, Maude hadn't been married when she'd had him, and women with that stigma were unwelcome a lot of places. And having a coloured child, well, that was probably the worst of all. Could he do that to his mother?

Buck spoke up for him. "Your Ma, and his Ma is the same." he pointed at both Nathan and Ezra, as if they didn't know who they were.

Nathan looked around the table, but found no recriminations there. "Yes." he nodded.

Josiah shook his head in wonderment. "I confess I had thought it might have been a joke."

"Maude!" JD burst out finally, personally he had liked the con woman, but at the same time he harboured some doubts about her at the way she treated, at the time he seemingly only son. "How? Why? She doesn't seem like the kind!"

"The kind to what JD?" Nathan asked.

"To have more than one kid, it's a bit difficult to imagine her with two little kids in tow is all. And she never mentioned you in any of her stories... though I guess can see why 'cuasea the predjudice and that. But it must be cool, having a brother I mean." JD enthused.

Ezra had gone a little stiff during his speech. "I believe you'll find that most of the non horribly embarrassing stories were about Nathan." he said, brushing off his sleeve in apaent disinterest, easily seen through by all at the table. "Cards anyone?" he asked, needing to end the conversation before it delved into aspects of his history he did not want to be present for.

Nathan shot him a quick concerned glance, Chris and Vin shared a knowing look, Josiah hushed JD, and Buck grinned.

"Sure thing Pard, deal them."

Ezra was relieved that somehow they knew how to be tactful, and hopefully the matter was now settled and though he anticipated JD would be asking a lot more questions, because he was just naturally curious and meant nothing by it, but hopefully that would wait and would be directed mostly at Nathan. Nathan knew how to be discreet, he wouldn't bring up anything surrounding his conception and birth.

He dealt the cards and the conversation smoothed naturally back to their normal ones, with only a few questions thrown in from time to time about them and their past.

"Don't think I've forgotten about earlier Ezra." Chris spoke up suddenly, surprising Ezra by the complete 180 of the conversation. "We're gonna have a good long talk about pulled crazy stunts like that, and your gonna listen this time."

Ezra grimaced. He had rather hoped that the whole incident from earlier had been forgotten. "I still don't see what the problem is, no one was harmed and the miscrents were dealt with." he grumbled.

"Still gonna talk about it." Chris told him plainly.

The whole table chuckled at Ezra's put upon expression.

_Ok, so the talk with the others went a whole other way that I had planned, but to be honest I could think of no other way to end it so I apologise for the ending._


End file.
